It's summer and I don't think I've ever done more physical work in my life. Pickaxing for new fish tanks and garden beds, making compost, harvesting and shucking beans - lots of beans, carrying tienda supplies down the mountain, and hauling buckets of water to my house for myself, and sometimes for my neighbors. Probably not the best for my body to be carrying so many heavy things, but it's temporary - it'll start raining within the next month. The reason for carrying buckets of water is that we have not had water in the aqueduct for over a month. When I went to check on the half-built toma, it was a mess. Water leaking out from under the retaining wall we had built, lots of exposed tubes, mud and flies and cow poop everywhere. It looks like the cows that are kept in a pasture way too close to the toma have been trying to drink water from the area. Cows also apparently broke the transmission line because it was badly cracked and all the water was flowing out next to another pile of hot, stinking cow poop. Obviously I want to fix it but as a "good" development worker I refuse to do it alone; the gente have to fix it with me. And in over a month we have not been able to have a single work day. Not to mention the barely-started tank we have to finish too. And yes, the gente are pretty mad because before we started to work on the system, they had water in the house. (Before, the tubes that the cows broke were buried, but we had to dig some of them up to fix a sediment block during IST.) And now they don't have water, and tensions have been high between the gente and me. They know I am impatient and want to work, trying and failing multiple times to get them to agree on a workday - after all, in a month rainy season will start and WILL ruin our bags of cement. The gente are visibly unhappy that they have to carry all of their water to their house, cue me losing my patience and passive-aggressively starting to carry water for them. Oops... However, I'm slowly learning to be patient, keep my temper in control, and wait it out. The main reason we haven't worked is because there are still beans to harvest, and having food and income is more important than having running water. And they were not aware how much work this toma and tank were going to be - that was my fault for not being explicit enough. It's not like the gente are sitting around - they are working so hard. But working on the water system is just not priority #1, or 2, or 3. I'm hoping *fingers crossed* that next week, after the gente get back from the big river baptism excursion this weekend we can have a workday.
Four construction workers came and built the new govt-funded aqueduct for the Bajo Conejo neighborhood in the span of about a month. They finished the system and it was beautiful! And then after a few glorious days of water in the house...the same cows in a new pasture also too close for comfort to the spring broke the transmission line and cut off all water in the system. Melvin came back from unsuccessfully trying to fix the tubes muttering, "Bei I want to KILL one of those cows." Me too, Melvin. They got if fixed but I forsee the cows causing more problems in the future.
I've been working on finishing up the rainwater tank and making seats for the latrines we started at IST in February.
The water storage tank for Bajo Conejo almost done.
Everyone watches as the chlorinator gets installed in the new system.
In better news, my youth health promoters gave two successful HIV prevention charlas in Cerro Gallina and Cerro Mesa. Lucila, Dinora, and Dionicio killed it! They are back in school now so we're taking a break but plan to do some more HIV work during school vacation in June. Dionicio and I also traveled to Palma Gira to attend an HIV charla put on by another group of kids who went to camp. There have now been four groups from camp who have presented charlas back in their home communities, woohoo! A candidate for mayor had a political meeting in Gallina a few weeks ago and during the Q&A Enrique asked him, "What do you plan to do about the HIV problem in our district?" And then after the meeting Melvin said to me, "Bei, your charlas are working" and it was probably the best thing I've heard all year.
A sociodrama at the charla in Eliana's community.
And some other things I have been up to.
Kidding, it was anything but casual. Shellee, Emily and I took a taxi to the base at 11 pm and started hiking at 11:15. We reached the top at 4:30 am and proceeded to pass out against the wall of the electrical shed next to the cell towers because it was a wind block. Woke up FREEZING around 6:15 and scrambled up the rocks to get to the very top. The clouds cleared and we saw the sun rise over the clouds! I could see all the way over to my site too! It's about 1,500 m/5,000 ft of elevation gain from the trailhead above Boquete to the summit. Then we hiked down and reached the base at 11:45 am. Then celebratory leftover pizza, warm showers, long naps, and gigantic fish tacos. It was a ROUGH hike, I would only recommend it for the strong-willed and strong-legged. 10/10 but would never do again :) (:
We saw both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at once. How many places in the world can you do that from the ground?!
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